Friday, November 13, 2009

size DOES matter

Look at these HUGE prints!

Sylvie is hanging 4 new prints in the Fahey Klein Gallery in Los Angeles. Seems that two of them are from our two sessions together.

The prints are larger than I am! I'm larger than life!


;)






All images Archival Pigment Prints,
43x56 inches
Editions of 10


___


Seeing these made me really happy today.

That, and I used another reel of 120 (Ilford HP5 400) in the Brownie on my Papa and my two cousins (8 and 5) today.

The frame I'm most excited for was an accident.

We had the pull out bed for my gorgeous and sassy 5 yr old cousin and I had her lay on it. I stood over her in order to try a different perspective and just stood for a while waiting for her to relax. She's been trained by her mother to have the "picture smile" and I hate that!

It looks exactly how it is: FORCED.

So I just started talking to her, and then started combining words that I thought she (or kids in general) would start reacting favorably to... like 'fuzzy-booger-pizza,' for example. To my happiness, she started cracking up, and I flipped the shutter, as I was continuing to egg her on. And then she had a beautiful, spontaneous, head-thrash-laugh off to the left side, and I flipped the shutter again. Immediately afterwards, of course, I thought to myself: "Aw shit. I didn't advance the film. Well..... Hopefully that double exposure turns out well!!"




Oh, and I bought a pink Holga 120GN for reeeal cheap on ebay. I might have bought a Holga GTRL (also pink!) instead, but I had not known of them or seen them before I bought the GN. Plus they were more expensive. Does the GTRL have an advantage over the GN in any way?




Oh my. A pink camera.
A cheap, plastic, bulky, toy film camera. A real eyesore.
No one is ever going to take me seriously with this in front of my head.
Why in the world did I get this thing?




Because this is going to fucking rock my socks, thats why!



Can you tell I'm excited?
!


It's going to be fun!!!


I've already been researching so many "hacks" for the Holgas. It's going to be fun!!!
Have I mentioned that already?


But soon I need to learn how to develop my own film. And I need to get some hardware and chemicals. And then next I need decent scanner - I'm looking at an Epson 4490. I'm sure it all would pay for itself after a few dozen rolls at NatCam's processing price ($9 developing fee, $5.25 for CD, and $1 per frame) at about $22 for an 8 exposure roll, which really isn't that unreasonable.

Then, the next big thing after that is making prints. How much are those?
Whoa boy. I tend to get too ahead of myself.
I'll cross that bridge when I get there.



But until then, I have my holga oasis:

http://www.squarefrog.co.uk/

...sometimes web surfing pays off.

3 comments:

Michael said...

Congrats on the images. I'd love to hang the 2nd image if I had the wall space. Too many books.

Printing is another addictive hobby. Best done in the winter. I think I have 20 sheets left in the fridge. I have an extra enlarger....

Check out my darkroom:
http://pixelwaster.blogspot.com/2009/08/beauty-in-darkness.html

6 mil plastic on the window and around the inside of the door to keep light out. Doubles as a bathroom.

I have copies of the Zone VI Printing with Fred Picker. They come highly recommended by an old timer I knew.

Just remember to get it right in camera, analog "photoshop" takes years to learn. I'll dodge and burn but no more comps with film.

Dave Levingston said...

Don't forget http://holgamods.com/

Stephen Haynes said...

Congratulations, of course. I'm very pleased for you. Silvie knows something very good when she has it (you) in front of her camera.